Everybody has a story, I had one too and it had for a long time been eating me up, until I was lead to know that I am not suffering because of the facts in my experience but because of the story that I make out of it, does it make sense?

I had one little incident that happened to me when I was a young boy of about 11 years old. This experience over the years remained to be a painful reminder every time I took a walk down memory lane. As it is, I had lived with this pain through the lenses of an 11 year old boy for ages. What I mean, is the interpretation, definition, meaning, description and or explanation of what happened was of an eleven year old boy. Things have changed but I stuck to my story for a long time and in fact narrated it exactly the way I have always done for 11 years. I said it one too many times I came to believe it is true…. And it was; only it was the truth according to me. I know what happened and I wasn’t happy that it happened.

“Does it still hurt? Yes it does”….. So I read it again to my friend and I underlined only the facts this time, which were like 3 of them. So when I read the story again, it didn’t hurt anymore; why? Because I am a grown up now and it’s been years, wouldn’t you say? Hold on a second here…. do you mean to say as a grown up I am looking at it from a different angle and that’s why the pain is not there? Yes ….a pregnant yes to be exact!

The truth is, the only reason I am not feeling pain is because after separating the facts from my story I am able to remain rational. I can live with the facts and actually find them acceptable. The mixing of the facts and story is what clogs the vision, compounds the whole situation and literally complicates and compromises the healing process. It is more like driving a car in the rain without wipers. Groping in the darkness without a light! Walking with your eyes shut or blindfolded! The thing is, we have always created stories around certain events in our lives. It is the description, definition, interpretations and meaning that we give to the events that makes the suffering and hardly the facts! There is a need for us to learn to separate the facts from our stories and remain only with what happened. The stories are just that, Stories. They are not necessarily the truth. The story is not important, and therefore not worth relating to. The focus should remain on the facts and nothing else. This leaves room for possibilities, empowerment, creation, declaration and conversation. In yoga I believed I couldn’t take a wheel pose from a flip dog! I listened to teachers Paige and Kiersten. I now “flip dog” and take “wheels” back and forth with ease. In this case I separated the lies, the stories I told myself and remained only with what is! From this point on I was able to work the rest of the equation and I was good with it…such is my growth in yoga.

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Africa Yoga Project delivers global wellbeing in and from Africa. We practice and teach Yoga with a deep conviction that the potential to change the world lives in each of us. Our bodies and minds must be connected in order to create lasting change. We deliver tools to bring wellbeing to the world, one body at a time.